


The Feeling At Its Source

by chrysoshelios (solisaureus)



Category: Hades (Video Game 2018)
Genre: First Kiss, Getting Together, M/M, Pining, emotionally significant haircut, thanatos feeling love: [butterfly man voice] is this hatred?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:34:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27613543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/solisaureus/pseuds/chrysoshelios
Summary: When Thanatos hears that Zagreus left without saying goodbye, he cuts his hair off in a rage.It isn't until much later that he realizes what he was feeling wasn't rage at all, but something much more terrifying.
Relationships: Thanatos/Zagreus (Hades Video Game)
Comments: 48
Kudos: 461





	The Feeling At Its Source

**Author's Note:**

> "graphic depictions of violence" just to be safe, i describe zag's corpse a little in one of the last scenes.

An icy wind rips through Thanatos’s robes, tearing at his skin and tangling his long hair into knotted whips that snap behind him. He stares out over the black waves, watching them hurtle themselves and crash on the jagged rocks below the cliff he stands on. He clenches his jaw and thinks of Zagreus. 

Thanatos burns with such a blistering torrent of rage that he can barely recall his benign confusion when he shifted to the strange scene in the House of Hades earlier. The ruthless war and even crueler winter on the surface had kept him from home for months. His only company in the recent past have been Ares, whom he gets along with just fine but whose values are so foreign and unsettling that Thanatos has no desire to socialize with him, and Hermes when the two occasionally cross paths while delivering souls to Charon’s ferry. But Hermes never has time to exchange more than a few words, and Charon isn’t much for conversation.

So when he finally had a break from the endless onslaught of freshly reaped souls needing his guidance, he was looking forward to some company at the House of Hades. Maybe Megaera would be around for a drink, or he could catch up with his mother for a while before heading back out. And he hoped to spend some time with Zagreus, who always greets him with a smile as though there’s no one else he’d rather see, whose warm companionship has eased Thanatos’s weary countenance for as long as they’ve known each other, whose endless complaints about parchmentwork and bureaucracy are a welcome contrast to the kind of work that fills Thanatos’s days. He was feeling so lonely that he was even excited to see Hypnos.

But when he shifted into the main hall and the jade-green glow faded, it was instantly apparent that something was not right. His brother welcomed him home with that stupid grin, but he didn’t try to hug him like he normally does. By the throne, Cerberus was curled up with all three heads under his massive paws, beside the lord of the underworld, who was absolutely fuming. Literally, his burning feet blazed so hot that tendrils of smoke curled dark fingers into the air around him. Hades did not look up when Thanatos approached, scratching his quill onto parchment so hard that he must have been marking the desk beneath it. 

Thanatos floated down to the east hall, where Nyx lingered in her usual corner. There was no sign of Megaera, and Thanatos couldn’t have entered the lounge to look for her anyway, as it was boarded up for some kind of repairs. He turned to face his mother, his long hair pouring out from under his hood and swirling about him like mist. “What’s going on?” he asked.

Nyx closed her dark eyes and frowned slightly, and Thanatos knew this expression. This was the face that preceded words that Nyx believed her son would not want to hear, some scolding or bad news. The cringe in preparation for the fallout. 

“Where is Zagreus?” Thanatos demanded then. Lord Hades would not be so enraged if this had to do with anybody else. 

Nyx met his gaze, and her eyes were unreadable. “My child...he is gone.” 

Thanatos experienced more emotions in the following seconds than he had for the entire last century. His heart flickered through surprise, confusion, worry, hurt, and loss, and he can only imagine what his face must have looked like as Nyx watched. It finally settled on fury, which flooded out of his core like the flaming waters of the Phlegethon, and scorched every inch of him with a heat that was just as intense. Nyx was speaking, trying to explain, but he could barely parse her words through the overwhelming emotion pounding within him. Something about escaping to the surface, fighting his way past the countless perils of the world in which he was born so that he could seek refuge in the countless perils of another. 

All that Thanatos registered was that he isn’t coming back. He left, he isn’t coming back, and he didn’t say goodbye. 

He shifted to the surface, the walls of the House suddenly stifling him like he was a flame choking on smoke. And now he stands here, ankle-deep in the snow on the edge of some cliff, hoping that the piercing chill will carry away the rage burning against his skin, or at the very least that it will numb him. 

It is a vain hope. He is furious, angrier than he has ever been in his immortal life, angrier even than when the knave-king had humiliated him, angrier than when that pompous son of Zeus had challenged him and won. He can’t make sense of it, he feels like his rage is a flood and he can barely keep his head above it, like it will drag him down and drown him if he can’t keep up. 

He hadn’t known that the last time he saw Zagreus would have to sustain him forever, would have to stand in as the goodbye that he apparently wasn’t worthy of. He can’t even remember what that time was. He would have committed it to an important space in his memory if he had anticipated its true significance. He thinks Zagreus was upset, angry with his father, frustrated with the administrative monotony. Thanatos thinks he had comforted his friend, tried to cheer him up by challenging him to a sparring session in the courtyard. But he can’t be sure, and he clutches at the frayed ends of the memory, willing it to be the closure he didn’t get. 

There is still so much left unsaid. And now he may never get to say it. 

A silver strand of hair stings his cheek, and he snatches it out of the air, glaring at it like it’s a snake that just bit him. Zagreus has always loved his hair, even if he never said so out loud. Thanatos could tell by the way he was always idly twirling the ends of it when they would sit together, how sometimes he would weave it into tiny plaits, how he would tug on it to get Thanatos’s attention. Pinching the strand between his fingers like it’s a twig he’s trying to snap, Thanatos is overcome with the urge to hurt Zagreus. To hurt him the way he’s been hurt, even if Zagreus hadn’t thought about him long enough to realize that that’s what he was doing. He wants to take away something that Zagreus loves, that he won’t get to have ever again even if he does eventually come back. 

Thanatos draws his scythe and severs the strand in a clean cut. He looks at it in his grasp for a moment, the way it flutters pathetically like a wounded butterfly struggling to stay in flight, then releases it and watches it disperse on Demeter’s cruel winds. A tear escapes his eye, the trail it leaves freezing his cheek instantly, and a scream rips from his throat. He yanks the end of his hair behind his head, places the curve of his scythe under it at the base of his neck, and slices upward. It comes free in his hand, and he stares at it with silent antipathy before letting the wind carry it down the cliffs, toward the sea. 

The razor’s-edge ends of his short bangs seem to weep against his cheeks, but Thanatos’s eyes are dry now. He sighs and shifts away to the next dying mortal chosen by the Fates to join the underworld.

\--

Zagreus doesn’t say anything about it when Thanatos finally tracks him down. 

It only takes Thanatos a week to give up on trying to accept that he’s already seen Zagreus for the last time, on trying to keep his head down and go back to work like nothing’s changed. But every moment that his mind isn’t occupied, it drifts inevitably to Zagreus. He’s heard whispers around the House that Zagreus has been through recently -- that the return of the court musician and the reopening of the lounge were his doing. Hypnos tells him that Zagreus drags himself out of the pool of Styx a few times a day or night when his attempts to escape end violently, and that he usually takes care of some business at home before setting out again. Thanatos has to wonder, then, if Zagreus is actively avoiding him. Has this escape nonsense all been some elaborate farce, crafted by Zagreus just to avoid telling Thanatos that he doesn’t want to be his friend any longer?

It’s a ridiculous thought, but it lodges itself in Thanatos’s mind like a splinter that hurts every time he moves. And the only way to pry it free is by shoving down his pride and seeking Zagreus out. 

By the time Thanatos has followed Zagreus’s seared tracks to Elysium, he realizes that the pounding in his chest is caused by nerves. He’s nervous to see his oldest and closest friend, the one he grew up with and discovered as he discovered himself. He’s angry with him, unspeakably so, but underneath the anger is a lighter, peculiar fluttering that he can’t pin down. It sounds almost like the tune of fear, but in a different key. 

He brushes the ends of his hair out of his face and presses on. 

The next time he shifts, Zagreus is standing an arm’s reach in front of him, holding a spear across his chest as if to defend himself. But recognition settles into his gaze, and he lowers it with a smile.

He _smiles_.

Thanatos’s gut twists, and he scowls, spitting venom like some offended creature. “You thought you could just get away from me, did you?” he seethes.

Zagreus apparently hadn’t anticipated the vitriol in his tone, and he startles upright, brows drawn. Something shutters in his face, and he looks away. “Ah. So my father has finally stooped so low as to send you to do his dirty work.”

Thanatos wants to scream. He doesn’t know, does he? Still, he does not see the knife in his hand, or the matching gash in Thanatos’s back. It is so inescapably obvious to Thanatos, it dominates all of his thoughts and trails him everywhere like a phantom, and yet Zagreus does not grasp the damage that he’s caused. “Zagreus. Is that really why you think I’m here?”

Zagreus looks up and opens his mouth to reply, but the sight of something beyond Thanatos’s shoulder seizes his words. Thanatos feels himself being shoved aside by Zagreus’s broad palm, and watches as the spear flies from the prince’s hand and into the chest of an exalted bowman whose arrow was aimed directly at the god of death. 

And just like that, their conversation becomes a battle. More spirits swarm the hallowed grounds of Elysium, and Thanatos marks them for death with flourishes of his scythe. Zagreus dashes from foe to foe, his flaming feet blurring red against the pale green of the grass, slashing and stabbing wildly. Thanatos can’t help it, he keeps track of each of their kills like this was just one of their stakes-less challenges in Achilles’s training ring. It’s over just as suddenly as it began, with a disembodied spirit impaled on the tip of Zagreus’s spear, but it is not enough to surpass Thanatos’s kill count. He feels a petty sense of pride, but it is dampened by the notion that for all his efforts, he was ultimately aiding Zagreus in his goal. 

His goal of leaving home, and Thanatos with it, behind, forever.

“We still make a good team,” Zagreus says as he strides back over to him, chest heaving with exertion and weapon laying across his shoulders.

“You were reckless,” Thanatos scolds. “You could’ve been killed in your haste to outdo me.”

“Didn’t think you’d care,” Zagreus throws back at him. “Why are you even helping me?”

The question makes Thanatos rear back as if he’s been slapped. How could Zagreus think he doesn’t care? Slighted or not, did he really expect Thanatos to stand back and let him get slaughtered? Were his thoughts of him already so rotted, so disfigured that he had convinced himself that Thanatos could ever bring himself to fight him in earnest? That he wouldn’t help if Zagreus needed him? He narrows his eyes and scoffs. “Not what I’m here for. I just came to ask you if you figured I would just catch up with you eventually. Since death is inescapable, after all.”

“What? Than, what do you --”

“You _left!_ ” Thanatos cuts him off, spurred to yelling by the twist he feels at his old nickname. “Without so much as telling me goodbye? Is that how little you think of me?”

Zagreus meets his gaze with a grave intensity. “I have to do this, Than. I did think of you. I thought you would understand.”

There are so many things Thanatos wants to say, to ask. Understand what, exactly? That he was bored and restless in his father’s house? He does understand that. He has always been there to listen and lift his spirits when it became too much. What he doesn’t understand is why, why, _why_ , why now? Why do this to everyone, to him? Why is this worth tearing their home apart at the seams, why is this worth Megaera stalking the halls of the house with rage and heartbreak radiating from her like suffocating heat, why is this worth the agony surging through Thanatos still, the excruciating desperation of not being enough? He wants to reach forward and shake Zagreus by the shoulders until the answers fall from him, but he can already feel his head surrendering to the flood of his hurt. He cannot show Zagreus that pain, he cannot expose something so vulnerable when Zagreus is already leaving.

He squeezes his eyes shut and turns around, gripping his scythe in preparation to shift. “If you won’t say it, I’ll say it.” His voice is catching in his throat, urging him to leave before it breaks. “Goodbye, Zagreus.”

\--

During gaps in his work, Thanatos haunts the west balcony overlooking the Styx, staring at its endlessly churning waters with his arms crossed over his chest. If he comes at just the right time, he can catch sight of Zagreus floating face-down towards home, laid low by his latest hubris. Thanatos has offered him assistance in a handful of his escape attempts now, and the prince’s fighting has improved so much that he’s outpaced the reaper a few times and earned a pocket of life to keep him going a little longer. In one of their encounters, Zagreus abruptly handed him a bottle of nectar with a serious expression that did not suit his face. Thanatos was at such a loss -- the gesture seemed so out of place with the tattered state of their friendship -- that he offered a pin that his mother had once given him as an exchange. It was touched by Nyx’s power, a charm to reward the bearer for avoiding danger with enhanced strength. It made sense for a protective mother to give to her child, but Thanatos is kicking himself for the connotations of giving it to Zagreus. 

He doesn’t understand why he’s going to the trouble of helping Zagreus. By all means, he should be simmering in righteous hatred for the way he was treated. He should be out there punishing Zagreus’s folly like the Furies, sending him back to face the consequences of his choices without mercy. But instead he is doing him favors, clearing his path of enemies, offering him the strength to keep going and incentive to stay out of harm’s way. 

The reason is not hidden; it is an illuminating painting that would reveal everything if Thanatos could bear to look at it. But he can’t face it, he can’t bring his attention to the details of the picture when he’s already glanced at it and seen the blur of its true colors: 

He does not hate Zagreus. He never could, he never will, and he’s incapable of pretending that he does. And it would break him to look at it any closer than that. 

“Oh, Than, you’re here.”

Thanatos stiffens at the sudden greeting, but doesn’t turn. “Hello, Zagreus.”

“Listen, uh…” Thanatos can so clearly picture the way Zagreus must be rubbing his neck, scuffing his feet on the tile. “Thanks for your help out there. I know I haven’t made this easy for you.”

“You have a gift for understatement.”

Zagreus chuckles, which was not the intent of Thanatos’s words. “I know that things are...strained between us. And yeah, I know that’s an understatement, too. But I don’t want to fight with you, Than, and I was hoping you might be willing to talk with me?”

Thanatos glances over his shoulder. “What do you want to talk about?” 

Zagreus shrugs. “I don’t know. Anything. Do I need a reason? I...I miss you.”

Thanatos snaps his gaze back to the Styx, so that Zagreus does not see evidence of the way his heart just leapt into his throat. “Is that so?” he manages.

Zagreus sighs. “Please, Than, for old time’s sake? I’ll make it worth your while.”

The sound of a drink swirling in a glass bottle sings in Thanatos’s ears, and he turns around to see that Zagreus somehow has more nectar and somehow wants to share it with him again. He makes the mistake of looking at the prince’s eyes, at the eager honesty shining in them, and he brings a hand to his forehead. “Fine.”

The lounge is in a lull of activity -- the wretched broker and the head chef are quietly attending to their duties, and Dusa is tidying up some corner, but the tables are vacant and Zagreus leads the two of them to stand on either side of one. There are no seats, and they don’t need any; Zagreus has always preferred to be on his feet, and Thanatos hovers comfortably over the ground. 

Zagreus frees the stopper from the bottle and pours the contents into two glasses, pushing one across the table to Thanatos. Thanatos takes it and tentatively raises it to his lips -- he did not have time to sample the first bottle Zagreus gave him, and it’s been so long since he’s tasted nectar, as mortal offerings to the dreaded god of death tend to be few and far between. It’s cool, and it coats his tongue in a sweetness that isn’t overpowering but accents the underlying flavors. Nectar bestows the dizzy fog of Dionysus, but unlike mortal wine, its effects are immediate and solely pleasant in nature. Thanatos feels himself unfurl, the tension evaporating from his shoulders and the frown easing from his lips. He looks over at Zagreus, who seems more content than Cerberus with a fresh satyr sack. 

“It’s good, isn’t it?” Zagreus says coyly, and he must see the effect it’s had on Thanatos.

“It’s fine,” Thanatos hurries to say, but he takes another sip a moment after the words leave his mouth. “Where did you even get this?”

“By ransacking my father’s domain repeatedly,” Zagreus says in an irritatingly casual tone. Like he doesn’t grasp the consequences of that ransacking. “I don’t find much that I think you’d like, so when I do come across something, I save it for you.”

“Why bother?” Thanatos scoffs. “You must have other priorities.”

“Why bother? I don’t know, Thanatos, because you’re my friend? And you’ve gone out of your way to help me, and I feel bad that I hurt you, and I’m trying to make it up to you?”

“You think that handing off a couple of drinks to me will make up for the damage you’ve caused?”

“Of course not,” Zagreus frowns into his drink. “You made it abundantly clear the last time we spoke that it won’t.”

Internally, Thanatos winces at the recollection. He was too harsh with his words, lashing out because some childish part of him still wanted Zagreus to feel his pain. “It won’t,” he says. “But it...it helps, Zag. To know that you’re thinking of me.”

“I think of you always,” Zagreus says, the smile alighting back on his face. “I know I messed up by not talking to you before I left, but I wasn’t...I don’t want you to feel like I wasn’t thinking of you. I didn’t know how it would affect you. I’m sorry, Than.”

Thanatos takes a long drink before he responds. When he sets his glass down, he curls his fingers around it, tapping the smooth sides. “I somehow knew, you know. I always knew you weren’t going to stay. You were...so restless here. You just needed a reason to leave, and I hoped you wouldn’t find one this quickly.” He groans, scraping a hand through his hair. “What am I saying? You have no idea.”

“No, I think I get it,” Zagreus says, and his fingers touch Thanatos’s wrist. “Look, you’re my best friend, Thanatos. That’s not nothing to me, and it’s probably part of the reason I didn’t try to leave sooner. You’re right, I can’t stay, but...I never wanted to leave _you_ behind. I still don’t.”

Thanatos meets his eyes, and in them the picture he has refused to look at comes into view with devastating clarity. He can’t look away, it’s too late to avert his gaze and leave the image unseen. The fingers on his skin burn like a brand, but the pain is oddly pleasant, just like the sensation that’s wracking his heart. The initial rage that he felt, which drove him to cut his hair in grief, the nerves that preceded his confrontation with Zagreus in Elysium, the confusion at his lack of lasting resentment….They are all brush strokes in this painting, building on each other and coalescing into something far more earth-shattering than any of those feelings alone. 

He’s in love. He’s so in love, he can hardly bear it, and looking at Zagreus’s face across from him is like staring into the sun. Thanatos is overcome with want, with the urge to close the distance between them once and for all, to forgive and forget and offer everything he has to Zagreus and take everything he needs in turn. It’s so bright and so clear that it seems impossible that Thanatos did not see it before, even if he was refusing to look at it, the obvious reason that life in the underworld without its prince is so unthinkable. He loves Zagreus, he loves him, he has loved him for such a long time. He cannot stop thinking it, now that he knows it’s true.

“Thanks for the drink, Zag,” he says, straightening up. “I’ll see you around.”

\--

Time passes, and Thanatos guards the well of his heart, careful not to let a drop spill and betray its contents. Zagreus continues to give him lavish gifts, and Thanatos’s objections get weaker every time, because the attention feels good even if it’s not the kind he yearns for. Zagreus even manages to procure a bottle of rare ambrosia, said to change its flavor based on the drinker’s preferred tastes. Thanatos can count the occasions that he’s tried the legendary substance in his whole eternal life on one hand, and yet Zagreus shoves a whole bottle of it at him like it’s an obol he found on the ground. He’s so stunned, the only thing he can think of that could even compare to this gift’s worth is Mort, and he hands his precious little companion to the prince before he can rethink it. 

He briefly regrets it later, when he tries to grasp for Mort’s comforting presence inside his robes and comes up empty. But he makes Zagreus promise to take good care of him, and he trusts that he’ll take the responsibility seriously. 

The relief that Thanatos feels now that the two of them are on better terms is offset by the burden of his affection and the harrowing knowledge that no matter how many times Zagreus emerges from the pool of Styx, one of them must inevitably be the last time. One day or night Zagreus will not return, and knowing the truth of his feelings for him now does not make that any easier to cope with. But despite his selfishness, at his core Thanatos has always just wanted Zagreus to be happy. And if keeping him here would erode the warmth of his smile until his heart is as hard as his father’s, then Thanatos doesn’t want it. So he continues to aid him, urging him on when he calls for help, helping him towards the surface even if it breaks his own heart. 

He has heard mortals speak of agape, the all-encompassing, unconditional love that they profess for each other in their last moments, in the impending shadow of Death. How people could hold onto a devotion for someone who would ultimately leave them, despite the unnecessary agony it inflicts...he has never understood it. But now he thinks he is starting to.

From his balcony, Thanatos sees Zagreus floating down the river. Lately, he’s found himself scanning his body for signs of what could have led him to his end, checking his estimations against Hypnos’s notes after Zagreus is done talking to them. Usually it’s some horrific wound -- early on, he could see angry bruises mottling his neck from a Fury’s whip, or charred burns that reeked of Asphodel’s sulfur air. Once, his skin was a sickly green from satyr poison. Lately he’s been floating by often with great gashes or twin impalement wounds across his torso. But today, Thanatos sees nothing marring his motionless body. 

A few minutes later, he hears the soft hiss of Zagreus’s burning feet against the cool tile behind him, and turns to greet him. But the words die in his throat when he sees Zagreus’s expression -- he looks exhausted. Tired like the elderly mortals that go willingly with Thanatos when he arrives to reap their souls, because they’ve had their fill of life or have no more energy to protest death. “You okay, Zag?” he asks, his tone soft.

“I’m staying,” he says abruptly.

“What?”

“I’m staying here, in the underworld. I can’t ever leave.”

Thanatos feels his heart flip. These are words he has longed to hear, but they feel wrong. Like he is Tantalus, finally reaching the food and drink he’s been denied for eternity, only to find out they are too spoiled to eat. “What do you mean, you can’t leave?”

Zagreus sighs, stepping forward to lean his elbows on the banister beside Thanatos. “I met her, Than. My mother.”

Thanatos hesitates. This is what he’s been fighting to achieve all this time, why does he sound so sad? “What is she like?”

“She’s wonderful,” he says, hanging his head. “Better than I could have imagined. She was so happy to see me. It was worth it, Than. It was worth all the dying and pain and constant fighting, just to see her for a few minutes.”

“Why didn’t you stay?”

“Turns out, I’m bound to the underworld,” he says with a sardonic chuckle. “I was barely on the surface for ten minutes before the Styx dragged me back.”

“You...died?” 

“Yeah. Natural causes, if you can believe it.” Zagreus stands up straight so he can look Thanatos in the eyes. “So, I’m staying. Not that I have much of a choice.”

Thanatos’s mind is ten steps behind in this conversation. “You’re staying.”

“I’m going to keep going up there to see my mother as many times as it takes, but yeah. Seems the Fates don’t want me to leave any more than Father does.”

“I...see. Well then...that’s good,” Thanatos says, struggling to process this information. Zagreus raises an eyebrow at him, and he suddenly feels as though he’s laid his heart bare and rushes to recover it. “Uh, that’s good, because...it means I won’t have to track you down up top. Because between us, I can only take so much of it up there.”

Zagreus laughs, a genuine sound from his heart, and pats Thanatos’s shoulder. “Yeah, alright, Than. I have to go break the news to the others, but...I’ll be seeing you, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Thanatos mumbles, watching as he strides away to tell Achilles. He shifts away to attend to his duties, and the second the cold air of the surface hits his heated face, he realizes that he’d just told Zagreus he would follow him even if he were to live up here forever. 

\--

Zagreus is staying, and the rush that Thanatos feels in his chest each time he remembers that simple fact doesn’t seem to be fading. Zagreus is staying, and the novelty of that miracle hits him like a revelation every time he sees those flaming laurels shedding embers to the sky. Zagreus is staying, and for the first time Thanatos can love him without feeling the lingering shadow of despair. 

He realizes that he can tell him this, now that his feelings aren’t doomed by virtue of their inevitable futility. Megaera says that he should, that keeping it to himself is nothing more than self-flagellation now, joking that he ought to leave that to the oath-breakers of Tartarus. But it still seems unattainable, like something he must leap from a cliff and into freezing waters to reach. Vulnerability has always been a shock to him, and he hasn’t made a habit of baring his soul since the time he foolishly trusted a mortal to free him once he was chained. 

But Meg at least convinces him to ask Zagreus how he sees him, if their relationship is the same friendly camaraderie it once was, or if it has evolved into something new. The answers he gets are vague and noncommittal, but somehow that is more reassuring than a clear answer would have been. It gives his hopes the space to grow, like tea leaves unfolding in the heat. Thanatos is too afraid of shrinking that space to press the issue further.

And then Zagreus brings him more ambrosia, with words that taste sweeter than the drink of the gods could ever hope for. “You _like_ me, Zagreus?” Thanatos finds himself repeating, clutching the heavy glass bottle in his hands. “I never thought I...don’t know why that sounds so strange, coming from you. Given everything that’s happened as of late.”

Zagreus looks crushed, his tone defeated. “Yeah. Look...if you don’t feel the same way about me, at this point I would rather know. Cease all these coy gift exchanges, and all that.”

Panic cinches around Thanatos’s throat. “I-I never said anything like that!” he nearly shouts. “You know what, there’s...a bunch of mortals I have to go fetch. Goodbye!” 

He hears Zagreus call after him, but he’s already shifted away. Thanatos leans his back up against a massive tree in the mortal plane, heaving as though he ran all the way up here. _If you don’t feel the same way about me._ Does Zagreus think...did he just accidentally reject him? 

Thanatos smacks the back of his head against the tree’s bark, shoving the heels of his hands into his eyes and groaning loud enough to scare a few birds from the branches above. He misses not having feelings. Why did he do that? Why does he always run away the second any situation requires an ounce of emotional honesty from him? Why can’t he just tell Zagreus how he feels instead of sending him the most erratic messages possible? 

The prospect of surrendering his heart is intimidating, but he is Death Incarnate. When did he become so easily cowed?

Guilt settles over him like a heavy cloak, and he sinks to the ground, clutching his knees. 

_I like you, Thanatos._

_I care about you. A lot._

_If you don’t feel the same way about me._

Thanatos is so afraid of laying his heart bare for Zagreus that he didn’t even realize that Zagreus has been doing it for him for weeks now. And Thanatos ran away, leaving Zagreus to think...whatever it is he thinks. 

He can still make this right.

\--

“I need to ask something of you.”

Zagreus halts in the entryway of his bedchambers, frozen in place when he sees Thanatos standing by his bed. “Oh, Thanatos. I’d ask you to come in, but...hey, it’s good to see you.”

Thanatos brushes off the greeting. “When did this become so hard?” he says, not meeting his eyes.

Zagreus hesitates, and Thanatos can feel him considering deflecting, or playing dumb. But he sighs, and steps closer, rubbing his arm. “I don’t know, Than. It used to be so easy between us. And then I went and messed everything up.”

“I didn’t realize --” Thanatos begins, but he cuts himself off, unsure where he’s going. Zagreus looks at him, unrushed. He tries again. “When I heard you took off, the anger that I felt...it wasn’t something I expected. It rattled me. Frankly, it scared me.”

“It kind of scared me, too,” Zagreus laughs softly. “I didn’t want to lose you.”

“You wouldn’t have lost me, Zag. Not ever,” Thanatos says. “I was so hurt, and angry, and I didn’t get why. It didn’t make sense. But then I...understood.”

Zagreus nods, and it’s quiet between them for a moment. It doesn’t seem like Thanatos needs to say anything else to make his meaning clear, but he still feels like something important is unsaid. He draws a breath to make an attempt, but Zagreus beats him to it. “I didn’t mean to push you, Than. I know all this is...kind of a lot. But I need you to know that this isn’t some impulsive thing for me. I will wait for you, however long it takes.”

The notion strikes Thanatos as completely ridiculous, as much as the sentiment makes his heart swell. He has spent an eternity longing for Zagreus, and now his idiotic panicking has made Zagreus think he needs more time. It is so completely opposite of what he wants that he almost laughs. It comes out as a scoff, and he searches the ceiling in desperation before stepping closer to Zagreus. “You have no concept of which impulses to act upon, and which to keep in check. You say you’ll wait? Well, let me ask you this. What are you waiting for? What...what are you waiting for? I’m here, already….Right?”

“Than…!” Zagreus gasps, and then he leans forward to rest his forehead on Thanatos’s. His hands come up to grasp his arms, and Thanatos can feel his fingers trembling. A breathy laugh escapes him, and he mumbles, “Oh, you’re right.”

They stand like this for a minute, shaking in each other’s arms, hearing each other’s breathing as if it’s the only sound in the world. Then Zagreus lifts his face, searches Thanatos’s eyes. Thanatos ducks his head a fraction of a degree, halting, bringing their lips close enough to brush against each other but not daring to go further. Zagreus closes the rest of the distance for him, pressing their mouths together in a kiss so tender it aches. Thanatos feels the pull of eons of friendship ripening into a love that can finally be plucked, he pushes against Zagreus with the force of all that he means to him, kissing him with a fervor that he can only hope conveys a single shade of his devotion. Zagreus takes it all and gives it back, the two of them passing their hearts across the space between them, rolling back and forth like the tide. 

When Zagreus breaks away, he beams and brushes Thanatos’s hood off of his head, raking his fingers against the cropped fuzz at the base of his neck. “Hey, did I tell you that I like your hair?”

**Author's Note:**

> Uhhhh i wrote this whole thing in like 5 hours in one sitting because i've been thinking about thanatos and this ship like nonstop for weeks and i needed to get all my feewings out. I think i managed it. Sorry for reusing a lot of canon dialogue but it's not my fault they wrote it so goddamn good. Please excuse any grammar errors i am too tired to edit
> 
> Also, the title of this fic is from Zag's conversation with Nyx where he's like "yo why is than so mad at me" and nyx says "he is worried for you, i hope you can understand that any anger you feel from him is not the feeling at its source" or something like that. props to nyx for being the only emotionally competent person in the entire underworld
> 
> I'm on pretty much every website as solisaureus if you wanna come say hi! I've made a handful of drawings for these two as well.


End file.
